BlackRock Reportedly Considering Takeover Of Piedmont Center Office Campus
Ardent Cos.’ sprawling Buckhead office campus is at risk of being seized by the world's largest asset manager.
BlackRock is considering taking over the 2.2M SF office park, which is potentially close to underwater on its $421.8M debt load, Green Street's Real Estate Alert publication reported.
BlackRock owns a junior piece of the capital stack backed by all 14 buildings in Piedmont Center, Real Estate Alert reported, citing numerous sources with knowledge of the situation.
Ardent Managing Director Scott Werbel and a BlackRock spokesperson declined to comment to Bisnow.
Ardent, which is headquartered at Piedmont Center and has been in the process of renovating and modernizing the office complex, is still the landlord, while the status of the loans on the building is unclear.
Ardent amassed the 14 buildings over the course of five years, capping the process with the purchase of Buildings 5 through 8 in 2021 from Granite Cos. The move gave Ardent full control of the 45-acre wooded campus where the buildings are situated.
The investment firm was planning to convert 32K SF of ground-level office space in Buildings 1 through 4 into a retail and food hub, including a market deli and a brewery, What Now Atlanta reported. Werbel told Bisnow in 2021 that Ardent was also exploring developing some of the campus for residential use.
Morgan Stanley originated a floating-rate, senior loan in 2021 for $330.8M to purchase the final four buildings, according to real estate database Reonomy. The two-year loan had three one-year extensions, per Real Estate Alert. It is unclear how BlackRock became a junior stakeholder in the complex, but the debt's initial maturity led BlackRock to weigh its options over a possible seizure of Piedmont Center, Real Estate Alert reported.
Piedmont Center is the latest sign of trouble for office owners reeling from the rapid increase in interest rates and the wholesale pullback by banks. The situation is threatening the fates of 22 other office buildings spanning 4M SF in Metro Atlanta, potentially troubled with $390M in loans soon coming due, Avision Young previously told Bisnow.
Already in the region, Wells Fargo foreclosed on its $75M loan and took over 3003 Perimeter Summit, a 391K SF office tower overlooking Interstate 285 in Central Perimeter, from General Electric Pension Trust and State Street Global Advisors. A special servicer has moved to put the 29-story Tower Place in Buckhead into receivership after owner Starwood Capital Group defaulted on its $213M loan in July. In September 2022, the six-tower Peachtree Center complex in Midtown was taken over by a lender following foreclosure.
